Saturday, July 1, 2017

Six Month Check-In -- Can't Believe It's July

Seriously, half the year is gone already??

The only reason I have a half decent (seriously, half decent -- just short of 95K) wordcount so far is because of the two workshops I attended, one in late February and early March, and the other in April. They both required writing, and I work best (unfortunately) with an external deadline. I need to learn to work to my own deadlines, which is proving to be kind of tough.

I had so much enthusiasm and such great hopes at the beginning of the year. My weight-loss-and-fitness thing was and is under control, and I was pretty sure I had enough spare focus to turn some of it back to writing. Guess not. Or maybe I do but I've been spending that resource improperly.

So, its July 1st. Right now, I'm renewing my determination to do more writing this year. I can still make my goal for the year if I buckle down and do the work, and I'm declaring, here in public, that I'm going to do it. I have a book about building habits and writing every day (which I'll review here after I've put it to use and seen how it works for me) and hope to get back to being productive.

It's not all bad -- I have accomplished some things, like starting up my Patreon, and my writing/publishing review series. The most important thing to a writer is writing, though, and I need to get back to that. So I'm going to stop blathering and do so.

4 comments:

I spent the first part of the year sidelined with a broken foot. I work at a full time job and write on the side, and the energy the healing took made just doing the day job exhausting. I didn't get much done. The boot came off in early May, and I started releasing one of my back stock of stories once a week to get back in. Started a new novella, and am now writing in public (one short story a week, posted up on my site for two weeks). I think I'm nuts on the last thing, but it's not going to hurt to try it and see what happens.

Linda -- ouch! Yeah, healing up from an injury takes a lot of energy and time and focus. And with a day job too, I'm not surprised your writing was less productive.

It sounds like you're coming back with a vengeance, though, so go you!

About putting shorts up on your blog for free, that can work very well for you. I know two writers off the top of my head who put short stories up on their web sites for free, while selling those same stories at the various vendors, and do very well at it. Kristine Kathryn Rusch puts up one of her previously published short stories every Monday on her blog, with buy links to the vendors where the story's up for sale. Each Monday, she takes the old story down, leaving the post up, with the story description and buy links, and puts up a new one. M.L. Buchman puts up one new story on the 14th of every month, free for a week, then he takes the story down but leaves the post up with the story description and buy links to the vendors. Matt has said he makes a nice income from his shorts, despite putting them all up for free first.

It might take a while to build up an audience for your shorts, but if you keep going, it could really help your discoverability, and put some money in your pocket. Check out how Kris and Matt do it. Best of luck!

About Me

My name is Angie and I'm a writer living in Seattle, WA with my husband. I publish science fiction, fantasy and crime stories under Angela Penrose, and romance and erotica under Angela Benedetti. I pretty much live at the computer, either writing or online or both. My schedule is chaotically variable, so I might be awake or asleep at any given moment. It's not all bad; writing at 2am when it's quiet is actually pretty cool.